Notes from a tasting menu dinner, rudely interrupted

Never leave home without dental floss!

The accursed fourth course at Workshop

It is perhaps advisable to bring along reading material when dining solo at a two-hour tasting menu experience, in order to enhance one’s enjoyment of the evening. It is positively essential, however, to bring dental floss to every dining occasion, in order to avert a temporary hell born of aging-related gum recession. 

I learned both lessons a few weeks ago—the latter at a much dearer price—while having dinner at Workshop Food & Drink in Portland, Oregon. This small vegan restaurant hosts six seatings each week for its eight-course tasting menu, which specializes in fermentation. 

Walking into the low-lit room felt like entering a stylish person’s apartment, with drapey plants and concrete floors dressed in a bright Moroccan rug; exposed shelves lined with cookbooks and animal-themed bric-a-brac; and ornately framed art and mirrors arranged amid accents of cobalt blue and camel. A server led me to a two-top by the front window. A frilly-edged curtain obscured most of the view outside, effectively killing any chance of watching passersby. I slid into the banquette next to a pair of women in their twenties wearing Doc Martens. One was in town for her birthday weekend. 

Why didn’t I bring a book?, I wondered, as I tried desperately not to listen in on their conversation. Blonde Friend, who’d been in Las Vegas the week before on a work trip, requested “some bubbles” in addition to the first wine pairing.

Oh good, there’s cornbread! Sweet, moist blue cornbread—wow, so moist it formed a paste in my mouth (not altogether unpleasant?). The accompanying smoked kombucha honey “butter” had a texture like whipped silk, but was so smoky I could only manage a dab.

A subsequent snack platter featured four cold two-biters, including a sensational koji beet reuben with kraut and cashew-chive cheese and sweet corn custard shaped into a flower and heaped with seaweed caviar. (During his spiel, the sous chef hilariously identified the latter as “the yellow thing.”) A gougère burst with sharp, rich cashew cheese. Cashews make the best vegan cheese, I decided.

A tomato consommé, also cold, came next in a white bowl that looked like a human ear, close up. We were told the design was functional; the bottom doubled as a handle, so we could pick up the bowl and drink down the soup in one go. It was wonderful—the savory-sweet essence of a tomato, liquified. Shape-shifting blobs of basil oil on the surface softened the acidity. I tried not to think too much about drinking out of a giant, alabaster earlobe.

By this point, as often happens whenever I eat chi-chi vegan food, I began to wonder why most of the courses were served tepid or cold. I suppose the chefs are performing all kinds of manipulations in advance of service: sprouting, dehydrating, fermenting, smoking, puréeing. The chef here, Aaron Adams, who also owns the more casual Fermenter restaurant next door, is (as the name suggests) a particular whiz with fermentation; he makes shio koji (a funky-sweet condiment from fermented grain koji) in house and infuses it with smoked onions, and ferments cashew milk into kefir, among other delicious manipulations. 

But I do like a hot meal, especially at dinnertime. 

Unfortunately, I couldn’t unpack this quandary any further after the pivotal arrival of course four (again, cold): a seaweed cracker piped with chivey cashew cream and set atop a huddle of roasted cherry tomatoes anchored in smoked eggplant purée. I broke the cracker with my fork and swiped a bite. A whole pickled coriander seed—or was it a grain or some other seed?—promptly lodged itself between my back right molars, a fun-size cruelty of life that’s worsened noticeably since I entered my late 30s. 

How on earth did I forget to pack floss on this trip?

The little morsel was wedged agonizingly out of reach of my fingernail. Wait, got it! Nope, now I’ve lodged it in deeper.  

I quickly removed my forefinger from my mouth and forced a grin as the server swept over to remove the offending course. She set down a steak knife for the next dish. I pretended to idly examine it while I ran my fingers along the edge. 

Was it just thin enough that I could surreptitiously wedge it between my teeth and get that goddamn piece of—what was it—birdseed out? No, no, I couldn’t possibly jam a steak knife in my mouth at the dinner table. But maybe Birthday Gal and Blonde Friend wouldn’t notice if I tucked the knife in my bag and took it to the bathroom. Why are these tables so fucking close together!

A charred lion’s mane mushroom steak with puréed Cuban-style black beans and pepper stew arrived soon thereafter, its spicy aromas wafting up in a mouthwatering facial. Finally! Something warm! 

Unfortunately, I couldn’t really enjoy the mildly savory, tender mushroom or the creamy nostalgia of the beans, shot through with edible adrenaline from vinegary pepper stew and bright chayote salsa because I could now feel my two molars slowly shifting further apart like Pangea. I started casting around for a loose string on my clothes, inside my bag and along the seams of the booth. 

Meanwhile, Blonde Friend was insisting she’d go straight home after this; she couldn’t wait to put on sweatpants. Birthday Gal (who was staying on Blonde Friend’s couch) could go out after dinner if she wanted. Blonde Friend would leave the key under the mat. 

Blonde Friend’s hair looked a lot thicker and shinier than mine. I bet I could floss with one of her hairs and it wouldn’t break.

Stupid brittle fine hair. 

My thinly veiled desperation mostly stamped out my appreciation of the beautiful, cinnamon-scented majerete (horchata-like corn pudding, also cold) that came after the ineffectual knife and delicious mushroom remnants were taken away. Nor can I recall much about the (cold) rose apple tart with toasted koji cream, which I bolted down while searching for an Uber. Destination: Target, where I would unapologetically floss while still at self-checkout, approximately 16 minutes later. But the security guard looked of a mature enough age to understand.